Julian Biggs

Julian Biggs (1920 in Port Perry, Ontario – 1972 in Montreal) was a director, producer and administrator with the National Film Board of Canada for 20 years responsible for two Academy Award nominees, Herring Hunt (1953, as director) and Paddle to the Sea (1966, as producer).

Career

A graduate of University of Toronto who served in the Canadian army and navy during World War II, Julian Biggs joined the National Film Board as production assistant and writer in 1951. He became the director of English production at the Board in 1966, then returned to active directing in 1968. He was responsible for several of the early NFB dramas, the Perspective series, 23 Skidoo and The Little Fellow from Gambo.[1] He directed the Academy Award-nominated Herring Hunt and oversaw the production of nearly 200 films, including Don Owen's High Steel and Notes for a Film About Donna and Gail, and Bill Mason's Paddle to the Sea, the popular Oscar-nominated live-action short. In 1970, his profile of Newfoundland Prime Minister Joey Smallwood, A Little Fellow from Gambo, earned him a best director award at the Canadian Film Awards.

Perspective series

A National Film Board series of 30-minute dramas produced by Biggs (paralleled by a similar series in French known as Passe-partout) from 1956 to 1958. The emphasis was on documentary dramas in which social themes such as alcoholism, drug addition, adolescence, the elderly, racial problems etc. predominated.

One such film, Monkey on the Back, directed by Biggs, was a bleak, tragic story of man's struggle to free himself, unsuccessfully, from drug addiction. Similar to Robert Anderson's Drug Addict (1948), which had been banned in the U.S., it was the type of film that caused the Board to reconsider its role in producing socially relevant films. There was an unwritten policy and priority to shift away from social realism to the art of film.[2]

In his authoritative Film Companion, Canadian film historian Peter Morris wrote this about the series that contained elements, which later become common in direct cinema.

"Perhaps the most original aspect of the films was their method of production: a light, quiet-running Auricon camera mounted on a chest harness, used on location and combined with double-system sound recording using the Sprocketape recorder. This technology sharply reduced production costs and shooting time. The style that resulted is apparent in most of the films, mostly clearly in Joe and Roxy (1957) and Night Children (1956), and clearly anticipates the later application of direct cinema to fiction. The series initially attracted a large audience, but the didactic tone of many of the film and the problems inherent in condensing high-intensity dramas into 30 minutes drove viewers away. The series was cancelled in the spring of 1958. The Candid Eye series was developed a least partially in reaction to the dramatic format of Perspective, an approach the NFB believed had lost touch with the real world." [3]

Films include
  • The Oyster Man, 1951 (co-directed with Jean Palardy)
  • The Son, 1952 (directed and wrote)
  • Herring Hunt, 1953 (directed)
  • The Shepherd, 1956 (produced and directed)
  • Monkey on the Back, 1956 (produced, directed and edited)
  • Night Children, 1956 (produced)
  • Joe and Roxy, 1957 (produced)
  • Fire in Town, 1958 (directed)
  • William Lyon MacKenzie: A Friend to His Country, 1961 (produced and directed)
  • 23 Skidoo, 1964 (directed)
  • John Hirsch: A Portrait of a Man and a Theatre, 1965 (produced)
  • Buster Keaton Rides Again, 1965 (produced)
  • The Railrodder, 1965 (produced)
  • High Steel, 1965 (produced)
  • Paddle to the Sea, 1966 (produced)
  • Notes for a Film About Donna and Gail, 1966 (produced)
  • A Little Fellow from Gambo: The Joey Smallwood Story, 1970 (produced, directed and wrote)

References
  1. Morris, Peter (1984). The Film Companion. Toronto: Irwin Publishing. p. 30. ISBN 0 7725 1505 0.
  2. Evans, Gary (1991). In the National Interest: A Chronicle of the National Film Board of Canada from 1949 to 1989. University of Toronto Press. p. 38. Sydney Newman.
  3. Morris, Peter (1984). The Film Companion. Toronto: Irwin Publishing. pp. 237–238. ISBN 0 7725 1505 0.

Julian Biggs on IMDb

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